Definition.Toxic metals are a group of minerals that have no known function in the
body.In addition, they are known
to be very harmful to plant, animal and human bodies.

High exposure.Toxic metals have always been present on earth.However, mankind today is exposed to the highest levels of these metals in recorded
history.This is mainly due to
their industrial use for the past 300 years, the burning of fossil fuels
without scrubbers, and improper incineration of waste materials worldwide.

Toxic metals are now
everywhere, and affect everyone on planet earth.They have become a major cause of illness, aging and even
genetic defects.

Not taught much.The study of toxic metals is often considered a
part of the study of toxicology.This subject matter is not widely taught today in high schools, colleges
or medical schools.

For this reason,
this important cause of disease is given little
attention in society or in conventional mainstream medicine.Fortunately, environmental science is
beginning to pay more attention to toxic metals and their relationship to the
health of all living things on planet earth.

This article focuses
on the extent of toxic metal problems, sources of toxic metals, symptoms, and
how to remove them safely and deeply.

TOXIC METAL
CONCEPTS

This article
presents the following principles or concepts about toxic metals.I will only mention them briefly here,
because they are explained later in the article.

1. Congenital toxic metals.ALL
babies born todayanywhere in the
world have too many toxic metals.This occurs because toxic metals are widely distributed in the air,
drinking water, food and elsewhere.

Also, all the toxic
metals pass easily across the placenta from pregnant mothers and deposit in the
tissues of their unborn babies.This is a very serious problem that few talk about.However, it is obvious if one does hair
mineral testing on newborns and young children.

2. Preferred minerals.The body takes the best minerals it can find from food, water and
sometimes elsewhere.Even the
highly toxic ones can sustain life, to a degree.However, our bodies definitely prefer the ideal or nutrient
minerals in enzymes and elsewhere, if they can get them.

For example, the
body prefers zinc for over 50 critical enzymes.However, if zinc becomes deficient, which it is in most soil
and in most of our food today, or if exposure to cadmium, lead or mercury is
sufficiently high, the body will use the toxic metals in place of zinc.

Cadmium, in particular, is
located just below zinc in the periodic table of the elements, so its outer
atomic structure is very similar to that of zinc.As a result, cadmium “fits” well into zinc binding sites and
can easily replace zinc in critical enzymes such as RNA transferase,
carboxypeptidase, alcohol dehydrogenase
and many others of great importance in the body.

An analogy is to
imagine taking an automobile journey.If one is far away from a repair shop when a key part such as the fan
belt breaks, if one had a spare piece of rope, one could tie it around the
pulleys and continue the trip slowly.

The rope would not
function nearly as well as the original part, but would allow one to keep going. This is how toxic metals can function positively in the
body, at times.

Many people limp
along on grossly deficient diets, and many today are born deficient in the
vital minerals and too high in toxic metals due to imbalances in their mothers.

Their fatigue and
other symptoms are due to the presence of incorrect “replacement parts” in
their biological engine compartments.Depending on where toxic metals accumulate, the resulting effects may be
given names such as hypothyroidism, diabetes or cancer.The idea of preferred minerals is
discussed in a theoretical context in the article on this website entitled The Theory of Nutritional Balancing Science.

This is critical to
understand.It means that toxic
metals can have an adaptive function to sustain life in the face of vital mineral
deficiences.

Nutritional
balancing programs replace less preferred minerals with more preferred
minerals.This therapy concept is
not well-known.

3. Stress and toxic
metals.Stress depletes
vital minerals faster.This leads
to deficiencies of these minerals.This, in turn, causes the body to absorb more toxic
metals.

In this way, stress
is a direct cause of toxic metal excess, which in turn contributes or causes
many health conditions, aging, disabilities and death.

4. Mineral antagonisms.Eating plenty of nutrient minerals actually antagonizes, or prevents the
absorption of the toxic metals.Deficient diets, however, always result in toxic metal accumulation and
poisoning because there are fewer vital minerals in refined food to compete
with the toxic metals for absorption and utilization inside the body.

5. The anthropomorphic concept.All minerals, including the toxic
metals, have very specific qualities that affect our bodies, and even our
personalities, when we have a lot of the mineral inside us.

For example, cadmium
is a very hard toxic metal.Inside
the body, it hardens the arteries and other tissues, and it even hardens a
person’s personality.

6. The poor eliminator concept. A key to solving
toxic metal problems is understanding that many people
cannot eliminate toxic metals very well.This fact is often overlooked when doctors try
to correct toxic metal poisoning.

The worst problem is
not necessarily the presence of a toxic metal, but rather an inability to
eliminate toxic metals. Hair
mineral testing has very specific individual mineral indicators for poor
ability to eliminate these metals.

7. Toxic forms of vital minerals.A confusing fact is that nutrient
minerals such as chromium, manganese, iron, copper, potassium and even calcium
and others can be in a form that is highly toxic to the body.In other words, nutrient minerals can
be in a form that makes them act like toxic metals for the body.

In most cases, the
body cannot convert the toxic (oxide or other) form into a usable form.Instead, the body must eliminate the
toxic forms of these minerals to restore health.

This can be very
confusing for both practitioners and clients.For example, it may appear on a test as if one is
eliminating a nutrient mineral.In
reality, one is just eliminating a toxic form of a nutrient mineral that is
damaging the body.

8. Developmental
versus toxic minerals.Toxic metals slow or
stop what is called on this website development.This is a very special type of healing
of the body.

It is critical to
replace the toxic metals with what we call the spiritual minerals such as zinc and selenium, in order to promote
development.We call the latter
spiritual minerals because they are needed for
advanced brain activity.This
topic is discussed in a separate article entitled Introduction To
Development on this website.

9. All neurotoxic.All of the toxic metals affect the nervous system of a human being or
animal.This is important to
recall.

Minerals are the
building blocks of our bodies.They are required for body structure, fluid balance, protein
structures and to produce hormones.Minerals also act as co-factors, catalysts and inhibitors of all our body’senzymes.Everything in our bodies are made of
about 50 minerals, also called chemical elements.

Having the right
minerals is a great a key to the health of every body system and function.

Mineral classification.Minerals are classified into four groups:

1. Macrominerals.These are found
in large quantity in our bodies.They include calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus and
sulfur.The first four are sometimes called the electrolytes, because they are
common in the blood.

This article will
only discuss the more common toxic metals.However, a complete nutritional balancing program will
remove many others such as germanium, gadolinium (used in MRI scans as a
contrast medium), thallium, and others.This is a distinct advantage of this program over
others that target only one or two toxic metals.

The categories of
minerals above sometimes overlap slightly because assessing minerals that are
required by humans is not a clear cut science.Some of them may be
needed in minuscule amounts, for example.

Also, some forms of the
required minerals can be highly toxic.Examples are some forms of copper, iron, manganese, hexavalent
chromium, selenium and others.Too much of even the most needed minerals can also become toxic.

TOXIC METAL DANGERS

General dangers:

Easy exposure.Today mankind is exposed to the highest levels
in recorded history of lead, mercury, arsenic, aluminum, copper, nickel, tin,
antimony, bromine, bismuth and vanadium, among others.The levels are up to several thousand
times higher than in primitive man.In my clinical experience, for this reason everyone has excessive amounts of some or all of
the toxic metals.

Persistent in the environment.Toxic metals are also persistent .The late Henry Schroeder, MD, who was a
world authority on minerals, wrote:

“Most organic
substances are degradable by natural processes.(However), no metal is degradable…they are here to stay for
a long time”.

Persistent and cumulative in the body.Toxic metals also tend to persist or
remain in our bodies for years.We
can remove some of them if we are healthy, but many also accumulate.

This is the reason
why nutritional balancing program include what some consider “drastic” measures
to help eliminate them such as coffee enemas, sauna therapy and certain
supplements.

Specific types of
damage:

Depositing in tissues.Toxic metals may also simply deposit in many sites, causing local
irritation and other toxic effects.

Causing infection.Some toxic metals support development of fungal, bacterial and viral
infections that are difficult or impossible to eradicate until this cause is removed.

Damaging biosynthesis.Minerals are very involved in the production of all chemicals in our
bodies from DNA and RNA.They are needed as raw materials for body chemicals, for enzymes
that participate in the synthesis of all of our chemicals, and for more.Toxic metals interfere, block, replace,
and poison many aspects of biosynthesis.

Weakening body structures.For example, lead, fluoride, aluminum
and other toxic metals that find their way into the bones weaken the bones.

An affected enzyme
may operate at 5% of normal activity. This may
contribute to many health conditions.Toxic metals may also replace other substances in other tissue
structures. These tissues, such as the arteries, joints,
bones and muscles, are weakened by the replacement process.

Other.Toxic metals upset
digestion, alter gland activity, change the metabolic rate, and damage organs
such as the kidneys and liver.In
addition, all are neurotoxic.This means they damage the brain and
nervous system.

In fact, we find
that many mental and emotional health disorders involve excess toxic metals in
the body and brain.I hope that
someday this fact will be recognized in the fields of
psychology and psychiatry.There is a small group of doctors known as orthomolecular
psychiatrists who are aware of this, but they are yet very few in
number.

MODERN DIETS AND
TOXIC METALS

The
danger of toxic metals is greatly aggravated today by
the low mineral content of most of our food supply.An abundance of vital
minerals protects against toxic metals. Vital minerals compete with toxic metals for absorption and
utilization in enzymes and other tissue structures.

However, when food
is low in essential minerals, the body absorbs and makes use of more toxic
metals.To continue the analogy
from the previous section of this article, we are not stocking up sufficiently
on factory parts, so we must use the greatly inferior
replacement parts – toxic metals.Causes for the low mineral content of almost all agricultural products
are primarily:

1. Hybrid crops are bred for production or disease resistance, rather than
superior nutrition.

2. Superphosphate
fertilizers produce higher yields by stimulating growth, but the crops grown
this way do not provide nearly as many trace elements.They are used
on both commercial and organic crops.

We do not replace
all the trace minerals on our agricultural fields today.Instead, human and animal manures are often flushed into the rivers and oceans, where they do
not belong and are often pollutants.

4. Toxic pesticides
used on commercial farms damage soil microorganisms needed to help plants
absorb minerals from the soil.

5. After harvesting
crops, food refining and processing almost always reduce the mineral content of
ourfood.Whole wheat
flour, when milled to make white flour, loses 40% of its chromium, 86% of its
manganese, 89% of its cobalt, 78% of its zinc and 48% of its molybdenum.

Refining cane into
sugar causes even greater losses.EDTAmay be added to frozen foods
to retain their color.However,
this chelating agent removes minerals that otherwise would cause the surface
minerals to ‘tarnish’, discoloring the vegetables.

As a result of the above, the
term 'empty calories' aptly describes most of our food today, even some natural
foods.Newer genetically-modified
crops are even worse.

Please eat only
whole, natural foods.Organically
grown is almost always better.However, it can vary and many organic
foods are still hybridized varieties.

II. SOURCES AND SYMPTOMS OF TOXIC METALS

For a more complete
list of sources for each of the major toxic metals organized by the metal, see
the Reference Guide at the end of this article.

ALUMINUM

Aluminum is called the soft in the head mineral because it
is associated with memory loss and dementia.Aluminum is a soft metal and a dangerous one.It is very common in the environment,
and almost everyone shows some aluminum toxicity on their
hair tests.

Among the most
important sources are:

1. Anti-perspirants.Modern anti-perspirants
all contain toxic aluminum compounds.The deodorant stones and deodorant crystals are no better, even though
they are “natural”.Use an
old-fashioned deodorant instead, or spray some dilute hydrogen peroxide or some
liquid soap like Dr. Bronner’s soap under your arms
instead.

2. Tap water. Towns and cities in many nations routinely add
aluminum to their tap water as a flocculating agent (to remove dirt
particles).This is a horrible
practice.

3. Table salt.A lot of table salt contains added aluminum as an anti-caking agent and should never be eaten!Natural sea salt is much better.

4. Food cans, cookware
or aluminum foil. Beverages in aluminum
cans or food cooked in aluminum may contain elevated levels of aluminum.Some cans are coated
on the inside, and this is better.

5. Other.Aluminum is also found in some baking powders, and some cosmetics
such as blush.Peppermint,
spearmint and wintergreen teas are naturally high in aluminum.For more details about aluminum, read Aluminum and Aluminum,
Iron and Manganese – The Amigos on this website.

ARSENIC

I call arsenic the slow
death mineral.Its
symptoms are vague, and it was used to kill people
because it is colorless and tasteless, so it was added to food and slowly
killed people.

Today, arsenic is
still a common toxin.It may
legally be added to chicken feed (Roxsarone) according
to the corrupt US Food And Drug Administration (the
FDA) and the somewhat corrupt US Department of Agriculture (USDA).I believe Europe has banned arsenic in
chicken feed.

Arsenic can get into
commercial eggs, all pig products such as pork, ham, bacon and lard, and into
most US drinking water supplies as it leaches into the soil from farming and
livestock operations.

Organic chicken and
eggs should be better.Avoid all
pig products due to parasite problems, even if well-cooked,
and to avoid the arsenic.

Arsenic is used in pesticides and, as a result, may be found in
commercial wines, beers, fruits, vegetables, rice and other foods.Once again, organically grown should be
better.Recently, rice grown in
China has been found to be quite contaminated with
arsenic.For much more on this
topic, read Arsenic Toxicity And The
USDA/FDA Cover-up and Arsenic on this
website.

BROMINE

Among the many food
sources of bromine are breads and clear-colored soda pop.These include Mountain Dew, Crystal
Light, Sprite and others.A long
list is found in the article mentioned in the next
paragraph.

Bromine can damage
the thyroid gland and replace iodine in all body tissues.This is quite serious.It should not be
allowed to be added to our foods.Read Bromine for more details.

CADMIUM

We call cadmium the macho mineral, and it is
one of the violent elements.Cadmium toughens the tissues and hardens the arteries.

It also hardens the
personality.Like lead, it is an
older male mineral that is associated with macho behavior, violence and
horror.The concept that when we
ingest or are exposed to a toxic metal, our bodies and our minds take on the
qualities of the mineral is called the anthropomorphic
quality of minerals.It means
that each mineral – both the vital minerals and the toxic metals –
have human-like qualities such as hardness, softness, or malleability, and they
influence us.

Interestingly,
cadmium helps people to “be tough” and take risks.For example, many modern city women have high cadmium that
allows them to function in male-oriented jobs such as being company
executives.Cadmium helps them and
others, such as prostitutes, to act more tough and to
handle lots of stress.

Military men and
women, and police often have more cadmium, as it helps them handle their very
difficult jobs, at times, and take risks.Unfortunately, it is also a deadly toxic metal associated with heart disease,
cancers of all kind, kidney disease, diabetes and other serious health
problems.

People who have
orgasms more than once a week tend to accumulate more cadmium, probably because
cadmium replaces zinc in the male testicles, and even in women’s ovaries.Male and female sexual fluids are rich
in zinc and some cadmium.

Cadmium is
widespread in the air, as it is used in brake linings
of cars.It is also used in metal plating as it is a very hard substance.

Tobacco cigarette,
marijuana and CBD oil or cannabis oil contain
cadmium.This is one reason people
like marijuana, as cadmium boosts the sodium level.They don’t realize they are poisoning themselves –
usually permanently – by using it.Cadmium is also used as a catalyst in some
hydrogenated products such as commercial peanut butter and margarine.Please avoid these horrible food
items.For much more about
cadmium, read Cadmium on this website.

LEAD

Lead is called the horror mineral because it is
associated with violence, lowered IQ, attention deficit disorder,
hyperactivity, and many other neurological problems.Lead is a widely distributed toxic metal due to its many
uses in industry.

Pesticides used on
fruits, vegetables and many other foods may contain lead, among other toxic
metals.Lead was
added to gasoline until the 1970s in the USA and elsewhere.Now gasoline contains a highly toxic
form of manganese, instead.

Old house paint,
current paint used on ships of all sizes, a few hair dyes, lubricants,
medications, cosmetics such as lipstick and others, inks, and perhaps other
products may contain lead.Glazes used on cookware in some nations still contains lead
that can come off onto the food.

Entire books have been written about lead toxicity, which causes hundreds
of symptoms from anemia to death.For much more detail about lead, read Lead on
this website.

MERCURY

Mercury may be called the mad hatters mineral.People who made raccoon skin hats in
the mid 1800s in America and Europe developed mercury toxicity after a few
years from rubbing mercury on felt to soften it.Many became mentally and emotionally deranged after a few
years of working in the hat factories.

Dental fillings.“Silver” dental amalgam fillings are usually about half mercury.I would have them replaced if you have
them, as the mercury will slowly leach out of them and into your body.

Fish and seafood.These are universally contaminated
with mercury on planet earth.It
is really a tragedy, since otherwise it is a great food.Mercury is found
today in ALL FISH, bar none.Even
small fish, which used to be safe, are not any more.

As
a result, the only fish I suggest eating are sardines and occasionally other
tiny fish such as anchovies or smelt.Skinless and boneless sardines have the least mercury.For details of why, read Sardines on this site.

We
strongly suggest avoiding all other fish.Anyone who eats fish other than sardines and perhaps other tiny fish,
even once a week, demonstrates high mercury on a hair mineral test.

Large
fish concentrate mercury a million times or more.The federal government recently issued
a warning that pregnant and lactating women should avoid tuna, shark, king
mackerel, halibut, ahi, mahimahi, and other large fish.

Avoid
all shellfish.Shellfish are often
even more toxic than other fish.For some reason, their bodies often accumulate cadmium and lead, in
addition to mercury.Most
shellfish are caught in coastal waters, which are the
most contaminated.Please avoid all
shellfish, forever, as the problem is just getting worse in most nations of the
world.

Once again, this is
sad to have to say, but mineral tests reveal the problem to anyone willing to
check my assertion.This is why
many people are “allergic” to them. This is a mild term.They are really poisoned by them.

Seaweed.Another food that is often contaminated with mercury is seaweed.This includes all types of sea
vegetables.Sushi, for example, is
quite toxic due to the seaweed and often the fish, which are large fish.Today, eating sushi can land you in the
hospital.

The only sea
vegetable we recommend is kelp.It
contains some mercury, but is high in alginates that bind to the mercury and
prevent most mercury absorption.

Salt.Some doctors don’t advise
eating salt because it comes from the sea and may contain some mercury.However, we find that natural sea salt
is needed and not that high in mercury.

NOTE: A recent
finding is that Mellow White Miso by Cold Mountain
can help detoxify mercury.For
more detail about mercury, read Mercury.

NICKEL

This is called the depression and suicide mineral, as
it is associated with these feelings and symptoms.Nickel is another hardener, used to plate inexpensive
jewelry, in coins, and as a plating material for bathroom fixtures and many
other metallic items.

Most orthodontic braces sadly contain
nickel today.It is also found in some metal crowns and dental wires used in
bridges and elsewhere in dentistry.Be very careful about this because nickel can contribute to cancer and
other health problems.

Nickel is found in rooibos tea or red
tea.It is also
used as a catalyst to make ALL hydrogenated oil products such as
commercial peanut butter, ALL margarines, and vegetable shortening.For much more detail about nickel, read
Nickel on this website.

FLUORIDE

Fluoride is sometimes called a cancer mineral.It is highly toxic.In fact, it is sold
as rat poison.The research about
its toxicity and horror for the human body is very clear scientifically, but this is suppressed by most public health authorities in the USA and
Great Britain.

The biggest source
is fluoride added to drinking water supplies.Adding fluoride to drinking water not only does not stop
cavities in the teeth.It is totally insane, because fluoride compounds added to drinking
water are extremely toxic.

Most of the world
has stopped this awful practice except for parts of America and Great
Britain.More
and more American cities and towns are voting it out.If your town still has it, organize to
get rid of it.Several excellent
websites and organizations are there to help.

Fluorides have found
their way into ground water supplies, and thus into the food chain.For this reason, fluoride levels in
foods processed with water may be very high, especially baby foods and
reconstituted vegetable and fruit juices.Please never consume these, and never feed them to your children.Also, do not give babies and children
fluoride tablets or fluoride treatments at the dentist’s office.

Health authorities who recommend fluoridating the water, or any fluorides, are
extremely ignorant, in my experience.I have debated dentists and public health officials on this issue.Their real level of knowledge of the
medical literature on fluorides is lacking.

Recommendation for
fluoride also rarely, if ever, take into account the already toxic amount of
fluorides people are already getting in natural foods, foods processed with
fluoridated water, and fluoridated toothpaste and mouthwashes.The combination adds up to overload, in
all cases.

Hydrofluosilicic acid, the chemical
often used to fluoridate drinking water, is a smokestack waste that contains
lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, benzene and radioactive waste
material.For much more on this
horror, please read Fluoridation Of
The Water on this site.

CHLORINE

Everyone assumes
chlorine is safe, since it is used to purify most all
drinking water around the world.It is not safe, however.It
is a very toxic mineral associated with heart disease and dementia, among other
health conditions.

Purification of
water supplies with ozone is much better.I strongly suggest that everyone drink either spring water, which has
little to no chlorine in it, or drink carbon-only filtered tap or other
water.

Carbon will remove
most chlorine from water.A carbon
block filter is best.Just
remember to change the filter every few months so it will keep working.

Note
that carbon and carbon block filters do
not remove most toxic metals from water.Only distillation and reverse osmosis remove most toxic
metals.However, these
produce a mineral-free water that is not good to drink
for this reason, and for other reasons, as well.

Another important
source of toxic chlorine is the residue found in bleached flour and any
products such as bread, pastry, cookies and more made with bleached white
flour.Chlorine is
used to bleach the flour.

COPPER

Copper is not a
toxic metal. However, it often
accumulates in toxic forms in the body, and causes many health problems.This problem is extremely common today.

Copper mainly
accumulates in the nervous system and in the female organs.For example, copper toxicity is
associated with migraine headaches, premenstrual syndrome, depression, anxiety,
panic attacks, some schizophrenias and seizures.

Copper also can
replace selenium in various tissues.This can impair the conversion of T4 to T3, contributing to thyroid imbalances that are very common.For much more about copper, please read
Copper Toxicity Syndrome on this
website.

IRON

Iron is a vital
mineral.However, acquired iron
toxicity is extremely common.This
is what we find on hair mineral tests.

This is not the same
as the genetic disease hemochromatosis.The toxicity has a different
cause.The iron is in a toxic
form, often in an oxide form that is very irritating and pro-inflammatory.

Sources include
eating red meat more than about twice or three times weekly or eating more than
4-5 ounce portions of it.Other
sources are taking iron pills or mineral supplements containing iron.

Another important
source is “iron-enriched” foods such as breads and most other products made
with white flour.Some herbs such
as black cohosh are high in iron, as is some drinking
water.Iron can give drinking
water a slight yellowish color.Holding on to anger can increase iron in the body.Many babies today are born with too
much toxic iron, just as they are born with too much of many toxic substances.

Holistic doctors often give
anti-oxidants to help reduce the inflammation.

However, a much
better solution is to remove the toxic iron.Nutritional balancing programs do this, in all cases.However, other nutritional, herbal or
medical programs cannot do this very well, in my experience.For much more about iron, please read Iron,Iron, Manganese and
Aluminum, Iron, and Iron
Personality Types on this website.

URANIUM

The main sources of
uranium are air polluted with radioactive particles from A-bomb tests, nuclear
power plant emissions, nuclear plant accidents such as the Fukishima
disaster recently in Japan, and perhaps some foods contaminated with uranium
from the same sources.

Uranium is
radioactive, as is radon gas found in some homes.It can damage the lungs and other organs,
it damages DNA, and is associated with higher levels of cancer and other
diseases.

General
Food Sources.Food grown near
highways or downwind of industrial plants may contain lead and other toxic
amounts of metals.Even organic home gardens may
be contaminated if, for example, old house paint containing lead leaches
lead into the soil.

Sprays and
insecticides still often contain lead, arsenic, mercury and other toxic
metals.Refining of food often
contaminates the food with aluminum, as it is found in
water supplies everywhere and it may be used in some food refining processes.

Also, some food refining
removes the protective zinc, chromium and manganese from food and leaves the
toxic metals in some cases, such as cadmium.This makes white flour even more toxic, as with white sugar,
and is another reason to totally avoid these foods.

Airborne Sources of Toxic Metals.Most toxic metals are
effectively absorbed by inhalation.Auto, ship and aircraft exhaust, industrial smoke and
products from incinerators are among the airborne sources of toxic metals and
other chemicals.

Mercury and coal-fired power plants.Burning coal can
release mercury, lead and cadmium among other metals.Iranian and Venezuelan oil are high in vanadium.Coal plants should have scrubbers, as
they do in the United States.However, India and China, in particular, often do not have scrubbers on
their power plants.They may not
realize the damage their plants are causing to the entire world due to
pollution of the air, water and food supplies.

Uranium
exposure is largely from airborne sources such as nuclear bomb tests and
accidents at nuclear power plants.All nuclear power plants also emit some low-level radiation, as does
uranium refining and medical use of nuclear material.X-rays, CT scans, PET scans and dental x-rays
also add to our burden of ionizing radiation today.Fortunately, some of this can be removed with a nutritional balancing program.

Incineration
can be clean.Older methods of
incineration of electronic parts, plastics, treated fabrics, batteries and even
diapers release all the toxic metals into the air.The use of scrubbers and newer methods of very high
temperature incineration are much better.

Cadmium and mercury in papers.Cigarette and
marijuana smoke are high in cadmium, and cadmium is found
in cigarette and joint rolling paper.It helps keep the drugs burning.Pesticides used on these crops may contain lead, arsenic and other toxic
metals.

Thimerosal, a
mercury-containing preservative, is still used in many
vaccines, including most flu shots, even when doctors deny it, I am told.Independent evaluation of a large study
that is part of the Centers For Disease Control
Vaccine Safety Datalink concluded that:

“Children are 27
times as likely to develop autism after exposure to three thimerisol-containing
vaccines than those who receive thimerisol-free
versions” .

Thiazide diuretics contain
mercury.These include Maxzide, Diazide and many
others.Antacids such as Ryopan, Gaviscon, Maalox, Mylanta
and many others are very high in aluminum.

Direct
Skin Contact As A Source Of Toxic Metals.Almost all anti-perspirants
and many cosmetics contain aluminum.Dental amalgams contain mercury, copper and other metals.Dental bridges and other appliances
often contain nickel.

Prostheses and pins
used to hold bones together may contain nickel and other toxic metals, although
most are titanium and stainless steel, which are much better.

Copper intra-uterine
devices (IUDs)release lots of copper into the body.This can cause depression, and
other problems for some women.

Household lawn and
garden chemicals may contain lead, arsenic and other compounds.Mercury treated seeds and
arsenic-treated wood are other common sources of toxic metals.

Occupational
exposure to toxic metals is important for many occupations today.Among the worst are plumbers,
electricians, auto mechanics, printers, ironworkers, and other metal workers.

Workers need to wear
gloves, masks and take other precautions when handling inks, metals and other
toxic materials.

CONGENITAL TOXIC
METALS

This
is an extremely important and preventable tragedy.It is a vital topic
that deserves a separate article.I will just briefly introduce the subject.

Today, all
children are born with some toxic metals acquired in utero.All the
toxic metals pass through the placenta from mother to child.This is seen clearly when
reviewing mineral analyses of infants.These are babies who have never been exposed to
food, yet their bodies are high in many toxic metals.

The only explanation
is that these infants receive exposures in utero
during gestation.This is a very
sad situation, as many children are born with two strikes against them, so to
speak.They are far more prone to
autism, ADD, ADHD, infections, developmental delays and more.For more information about this
critical topic, see the articles on this website about children’s health.

This tragedy can be largely prevented if all young women would go on a
nutritional balancing program before they become pregnant to reduce their load
of toxic metals.It does not
matter how healthy a woman appears to be.Most all young women today have too many toxic metals in the body that
are passed on to their children.

I am always pleased
when a teenage girl or young woman decides to improve her health before becoming
pregnant.It makes an amazing
difference for her and her baby.One can clean up the metals to a degree during pregnancy, but it is best
to begin now!

The problem of
congenital toxic metals is especially important because standard prenatal care
is horribly lacking in Western nations.For more details, please read How To Have Healthy Children on this site.

III. DETECTING TOXIC METALS

Toxic
metals are not easy to detect.In
fact, detecting all the toxic metals is impossible, as far as I know, because
they accumulate deep within body tissues and organs.Here are comments on the various methods of detection,
including tests of the blood, urine, hair, feces, liver biopsy tests, and other
methods such as electrical machines and applied kinesiology.

Blood tests. The problem with blood tests is that the body
quickly removes toxic metals from the blood and moves them into the tissues.So
blood tests must be done soon after an exposure, usually within days or weeks
at the most, or they are practically useless.

Blood tests are
helpful for an acute exposure, such as eating a food contaminated with lead and
doing a test soon after.However,
this entire article is mainly about chronic toxic metal poisoning.

Urine
and feces challenge tests.These are done by first administering a chelation
drug that binds to and removes toxic metals.Examples are EDTA or DMPS, for example.Then one collects a 24-hour urine, or a feces sample to see what comes
out of the body.

This test does not
detect most toxic metals.The
reason is that the chelating drugs mainly circulate in the blood.So they tend
to miss most toxic metals that are stored in the tissues or incorporated into
enzymes in the brain, heart, liver, kidneys and elsewhere.

Liver or other biopsies.This method is more accurate and is used, at
times, to detect iron poisoning and copper poisoning, for example.However, liver biopsies are costly,
invasive and somewhat dangerous.For this reason, liver biopsies are not used
often.

Electrical machines.Electroacupuncture devices, radionic
machines and other machines can detect some toxic metals.However, I have not found them accurate
or reliable.They are also
sometimes dependent upon the skill of the operator, which further decreases
their reliability and accuracy.

Applied kinesiology.This method, also called muscle testing, is variable in its reliability
and extremely dependent upon the operator or practitioner.It also does not quantify the amount of
metals present.I would not depend
upon it.

HAIR MINERAL
ANALYSIS FOR TOXIC METAL DETECTION

I specialize in the
use of the this test.For this reason, this is a longer section of the article.

The hair test
measures toxic metals deposited in the hair and skin.It is better than some other methods, but I do not use the
test primarily to detect toxic metals.

I find that no test
is that accurate.Fortunately, if
a person follow a complete nutritional balancing program, all the toxic metals
come out of the body, so figuring out which are present is not too important.

Why hair?Hair accumulates
toxic metals because hair is an excretory
tissue.This means that
anything that goes into the hair will be removed from
the body.So
the body often unloads poisons by shunting them into the hair and skin.

The hair mineral
test is also unique in that it is a biopsy type of test that
gives a snapshot of the inside of the body cells.None of the other methods do this so directly.

Government opinion on hair testing.The United States Environmental
Protection Agency or EPA reviewed over 400 studies of the use of hair for toxic
metal detection and concluded that:

The author of a
study of lead toxicity in Massachusetts school children, Dr. R. Tuthill, concluded:

“Scalp hair should
be considered a useful clinical and epidemiological approach for the
measurement of chronic low-level lead exposure in children.”

Reading
the levels of the toxic metals on a hair analysis report is not sufficient to
glean all the information from the test.Here is how to do it better:

1. The hair must be washed
at home within 48 hours or less before sampling.Any ordinary shampoo may be used.If one has a water softener, then it is best to wash the
hair twice before sampling it, using unsoftened tap
water, reverse osmosis water, distilled or spring water.

2. The
hair sample must not be washed at the laboratory at
all. The reason is that washing the hair
always erratically removes some of its minerals.For this reason, I only suggest using Analytical Research
Laboratories for hair testing.Most other labs wash the hair.

3.
Look for elevated levels of toxic metals.However, MOST LABORATORIES HAVE THEIR ACCEPTABLE LEVELS OF TOXIC METALS
SET TOO HIGH.One must use the acceptable levels that are listed
in the section below.

4. The amigos.These are toxic forms of iron, manganese and aluminum.The interpretation rule is that if any
one of these are elevated, the other two are elevated
in the body as well.

Elevated aluminum is
any reading above 0.04 mg% or 0.4 ppm.Elevated iron is any reading above 2 mg% or 20 ppm.Elevated manganese is any reading above
0.04 mg% or 0.4 ppm.Read more about this interesting
situation in The Amigos Or
Oxidants– Iron, Manganese and Aluminum.

5. Poor eliminator patterns.An excellent indicator of hidden toxic
metals in the body is the presence of a poor eliminator pattern.For the exact criteria for these
patterns, read Poor Eliminator Pattern.

6. Hidden copper toxicity. The hair copper
level is a very poor indicator of copper toxicity.Instead, look for hidden
copper indicators, which include:

- Copper greater than 2.5 mg%
or 25 ppm.

- Copper less than 1.5 mg%
or 15 ppm.

- Calcium greater than about 65 mg% or 650 ppm.

- Potassium less than about 5 mg%
or 50 ppm.

- Mercury greater than about 0.035 mg% or 0.35 ppm.

- Zinc less than 13 mg%
or 130 ppm.

- Na/K ratio less than 2.0

- Four lows pattern.

- Zinc greater than 17 mg%
or 170 ppm, in many cases.

- Phosphorus less than 12 mg%
or 120 ppm, in most cases.

7. Mercury indicators.Mercury is so widespread that almost everyone
has too much.I do not pay too
much attention to any test for mercury because I know that:

a) Anyone who eats
large or medium-sized fish has a lot.

b) Anyone with amalgam
dental fillings has a lot.

c) Anyone who eats
seafood or sushi has plenty.

d) Most, if not all
babies today are born with it thanks to toxicity in their mothers.

The hair or other
test results are often not as important as these dietary, lifestyle and
environmental factors.

8. Other general indicators of high toxic metals on a hair mineral
analysis.These include a very
slow oxidation rate, fast oxidation in an adult, three highs or four highs
pattern, and sympathetic dominance pattern.

I realize this
includes almost everyone, and that is the truth.We know this because even those who show few toxic metals on
their initial hair mineral test often eliminate large quantities of toxic
metals during nutritional balancing programs.This shows itself on repeat hair mineral tests, and often
takes a number of years to be revealed.

In my own case, it
took eight years before cadmium showed up on my hair test, and about 20 years
before nickel showed up.

The slow, or not so
slow, replacement of vital minerals with toxic metals is an important and
neglected cause of aging.It
causes deactivation of enzyme systems and the loss of organ and tissue
integrity.One could say it is the
essence of aging, from a purely mineral perspective.

Toxic metal
accumulation also feeds on itself.As one’s energy production decreases with age, the body is less able to
eliminate toxic metals.This, in
turn, causes more metal accumulation.Much could be said about this topic,
and I refer the reader to the article entitled Life
Extension.

GENETICS, GENE
EXPRESSION AND TOXIC METALS

Many birth defects
are due to faulty gene expression, and not DNA problems.Toxic metals are one cause.

For example, zinc is
required for several key enzymes in gene expression, such as RNA transferase and RNA polymerase.Not surprisingly, zinc deficiency is associated with
conditions such as neural tube defects.Many toxic metals interfere with zinc metabolism.

Single
nucleotidepolymorphisms or SNPsare a fancy name for defective gene expression,
even though the DNA is fine.Toxic
metals at the cellular level can cause these.

One should not fear
toxic metals.They cannot be completely avoided, but one can minimize exposure
with careful eating and a healthful lifestyle.

Also, our bodies have a
lot of evolutionary experience with them and effective mechanisms to eliminate
them.These can
be supported and enhanced with a development program.

This method, which
does not involve chelation at all, uses at least 28
methods together, at once, to remove ALL toxic metals safely and deeply.In my experience, it is more thorough,
safer and removes metals better than intravenous or any other type of chelation therapy.Also, all chelating agents remove some
beneficial minerals along with the toxic ones.For more on why I do not like chelation
therapy, read Chelation
Therapy.

For details about
the 28 methods of detoxification used with development programs, read Detoxification.

Antimony – found in Flovent, an inhaler used for asthma!Also used in lead-acid batteries,
“lead-free” solder, bullets, motor bearings, pewter,
some paints and glass, and some microelectronic circuits.It was formerly used
in some anti-parasitic drugs.

Antimony is also used in most fire retardants that are required on
most furniture, mattresses, cribs and other products.This is severely increasing the prevalence of antimony
toxicity in homes and offices.

Mercury - dental amalgams,
ALL fish (tiny fish are better), ALL shellfish, sea vegetables, some
medications such as thiazide diuretics, air
pollution, gold mining, and the manufacture of paper, chlorine, adhesives,
fabric softeners and waxes.Most
everyone has too much mercury in their body today.